The bright blue bleachers were loud and full of supporters at the boys and girls varsity wrestling team’s first duel of the 2025-2026 season as they fought hard against North Torrance. Boys varsity were first to take the mat and got defeated 24-46, but girls varsity pulled through and beat North 48-24.
Boys varsity stepped up to the ring first, and they started out strong, winning the first match. In the matches following, North proved themselves to be a worthy team and beat the next couple guys. With these wins, North took the lead and beat Redondo by 22 points. But even when losing, the boys stayed optimistic the whole time, and head coach Brian Notch is always supportive of his team, especially with all of the new faces and underclassmen this year.
“The boys lost, but even so, I was proud because from match to match, we had some kids make some improvements from last year and wrestle really well,” Notch said.
Even though the boys did not manage to beat North, the girls did, winning seven matches and losing five, successfully gaining enough points to beat North by 24. Senior Faith Bree, the team captain of girls varsity, won her match, quickly going into offense against her opponent and pinning her to the mat with no more than 30 seconds on the clock.
“My opponent is trying to come after me, and I have to fight my way out of it. One of us is gonna win in the end, and it’s gonna have to be me eventually,” Bree said. “It’s mostly confidence. I have to believe in myself and trust that every day of the week, I work on the same couple things, that it’s gonna work and that it’ll lead me to my full success in the end.”
This event was a non-league duel, meaning that it did not count towards any tournaments. Though this duel did not affect any rankings, the wrestling team still uses it as a learning opportunity.
“It gave us a good insight into kind of like where we’re at and what we need to maybe work on going forward,” Notch said.
The team’s practice leading up to events normally looks about the same because they have a good routine down, Always working on skills they want to master by the duel, their practice is focused on honing their abilities for the upcoming matches.
“We might cut out our technique portion of practice, and we try to keep the kids moving because they’re trying to lose a couple pounds to make sure they make weight for the meet the following day or a couple days out,” Notch said.
Both the coaches and the players are eager to start this wrestling season, and they are all optimistic about this year’s lineup.
“I think we’re definitely getting stronger mentally. Because there’s a lot of passion in the room, not just physically, but mentally, people want to be in there and be in the room,” Bree said. “They’re happy, and they’re there because they love the sport.”
